`No Error,' Official Says

Report Backs Dispatchers

January 09, 2004|By ALAINE GRIFFIN; Courant Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — Police will receive a report today saying dispatchers followed proper procedures when they sent an officer to a call last month that turned out to be the discovery of stolen money and a getaway van used in a bank robbery.

James Milardo, communications center director, said Thursday he looked into a complaint from police that dispatchers had failed to pass along enough information about the incident to the responding officer. Milardo said he finished his report Thursday and planned to submit it to police this morning.

``There was no error on the dispatchers' part,'' said Milardo, who declined to elaborate on his findings and did not release the report late Thursday.

Police wanted to know why the officer was not told by the dispatcher that the money was marked with a red dye, an indication that the cash may have been stolen earlier in a robbery at a Rocky Hill bank. Also at issue was why dispatchers declined to discuss the call over the air via the police radios and instead insisted on a phone call from the responding officer. In addition, police questioned why dispatchers did not send the officer backup.

Deputy Chief Philip Pessina confirmed Thursday that his office looked into the complaint from Sgt. Margaret Liseo that alleges Middletown dispatchers may have overlooked vital information that Officer Brian Flaherty needed to respond to the Dec. 29 call. Liseo was a shift supervisor that day. She could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to sources familiar with the case, a dispatcher sent Flaherty to the commuter parking lot at Exit 20 off I-91 to talk to a jogger who had found money in the area. Pessina said Middletown dispatchers told Flaherty to ``secure the area'' and wait for state police.

But when Flaherty arrived at the lot, he noticed a van matching a description he had heard in previous radio transmissions of a getaway vehicle used earlier in the day in the Rocky Hill bank robbery.

Authorities on Thursday were still searching for the three people who robbed Citizens Bank on Cromwell Avenue in Rocky Hill shortly before noon Dec. 29. Police said the robbers entered the bank, vaulted the counter and removed several cash drawers containing an unknown amount of money. No one was injured and no weapons were used. Witnesses told police the robbers fled in a blue van.

Police found the van in the lot about 2:30 p.m. A small amount of money recovered in the van by police revealed that a red dye device had activated.

Sources said Liseo was questioning whether the dispatcher failed to pass on information that the center had received earlier from state police -- that the money was marked with dye from an exploding packet that bank officials often hide in rolls of cash in the event of a robbery.

For example, when Flaherty asked a Middletown dispatcher whether there was a connection between the found money and the earlier robbery, he was told it was unknown, sources said.

``The cop was basically driving around the parking lot as a target,'' said one source who spoke to The Courant on the condition of anonymity. ``This posed a huge officer safety problem.''

When contacted Thursday, Flaherty declined to comment.

Pessina said he forwarded the sergeant's complaint to Milardo on Wednesday.

``What it sounds like to me on its face is that it was a misunderstanding,'' Pessina said. ``There wasn't anything I saw that was wrong with it.'' Pessina said Liseo served as a backup on the call, and state police officers stationed at their headquarters in Middletown were close to the commuter lot.

``The incident happened close to the state police barracks,'' Pessina said. ``There were plenty of people nearby.''

Rank-and-file officers are growing more concerned about how emergency 911 calls are being handled following several recent incidents that have raised questions about protocol and supervision at the center. These include a delay of nearly two hours to check on an 84-year-old stroke victim who had fallen out of bed, confusion over the evacuation of city hall after a bomb threat at the adjacent courthouse, and the lack of a policy on how to respond to a caller who reported a bomb threat on a plane at Bradley International Airport.

Privately, some are wondering whether it's time to move police dispatch back to the Main Street headquarters, where it can be supervised by sworn officers instead of civilian personnel.

But Pessina said such a move would defy recent nationwide trends toward the regionalization of dispatch centers.

``The state is mandating that we regionalize, as well,'' Pessina said.

Pessina said he has had few complaints about the 911 center that, according to police and fire officials, handles 80,000 police, fire, medical and public-service calls each year and serves a total population of nearly 55,000 in Middletown and Portland. ``They do a heck of a job over there,'' Pessina said.

He said a new, $60,000 training and computer software program the mayor announced recently for the city dispatchers will ``make the center even more professional than it is now.''

``A lot of officers are very happy they're going to get that training,'' Pessina said.